A Jolly Good Ship
by miscreant rose
Summary: A collection of Captain Swan drabbles and ficlets posted on tumblr. Chapter ratings may vary.
1. An Unexpected Valentine

**_An Unexpected Valentine's_**

Resting her forehead against the steering wheel of the bug, she forces steady breaths in and out, trying to muster up the last reserve of her strength that seemed to be hiding down in her toes. She can do this. She can fight her body's desire to be sick and make it up the flight of stairs to their apartment, to enjoy the Valentine's dinner she knew he would be preparing after she had begged off a night out earlier in the week when he had asked if she had any romantic dining preferences.

Truth be told, at this moment, nothing was more enticing than just a night in alone.

That is, if her body would cooperate.

She groans as a fresh round of perspiration begins to bloom across her brow. _ Come on Swan, you can do this. Stairs. Killian. Couch._

The pictured reward is enough to get her moving and out of the car. She wonders again how much of her day she has actually missed — twice her father had caught her nodding off at work. This was knocking her for a loop, and honestly, it wasn't how she wanted to spend her first romantic holiday as a couple with Killian.

The clatter her keys dropping into the bowl by the door makes Killian peer around the corner from the kitchen. Despite the lurch of her stomach in a less than positive manner at the aromas of cooking, she can't help but smile at him and thrill at the little rush of excitement that still runs through her every time she sees him. God, she's hopeless.

"There's my Valentine," he grins, coming to great her.

His bright red "Kiss the Cook" apron has her smiling all the wider — she had threatened to cross out the _C_ and replace it with an _H_ when he had bought it. Nuzzling her face into the side of his neck with a sigh, she leans nearly all her weight against him.

He holds her up easily in his embrace, finally pulling back to frown down at her. "Still? Love, if you don't take a day off, you won't shake this thing."

She gives a soft snort. "As if I could take a day off and not have some new curse crash down on us." Sinking down into the couch, she leans her head back and closes her eyes with a blissful sigh. She cracks open an eye to catch him looking at her with a worried look on his face. Reaching up, she tugs at the hem of his apron, "Come here, _Cook_."

He rolls his eyes, but joins her, arms coming around her as she happily curls herself into his side. "See?" she murmurs, trying to hide the yawn that threatens to swallow her whole. "All better."

He leans back, pulling her closer to his chest. "Why don't I believe you, and suspect this is all a ploy for you to fall asleep and cause me to burn dinner?"

Groaning, she props her chin on her hands to look up at him. "I would never," she says in mock affront, but another yawn plows into her and makes her want to pin him down under a nap as he had so cleverly accused her. She rubs at her eyes, and settles back down against him, face tilted up to his. "Besides it wouldn't be fair to ruin your present to me."

The caress of his fingers through her hair and against her scalp has a far too soothing effect, and she loses herself once more in watching his face, the emotions that play across blue eyes she can never seem to get enough of.

"Good thing I know about your cunning plans, and turned off the burner and set the oven to keep warm."

"Good thing I found a pirate who can cook," she chuckles. Her fingers find the buttons of his shirt that are peeking out above the top of the apron and she twirls them, wondering if her last minute idea of a Valentine's gift is really a good idea after all. Suddenly her stomach is flipping over from nerves rather than the need to be sick. His fingers continue to stroke against her neck, finding the knots of tension there and ever so gently beginning to tease them away.

Fighting the weight of her eyelids and the bone-heavy tiredness that seems to weigh down her limbs, she pushes herself to sitting up, and takes a deep breath, as if that alone can give her the courage to do what she is about to do. She gives him a look of, _Here goes nothing_, that makes him frown, but she is already reaching for one of the cubbies tucked under the coffee table, fishing out the box she had hidden in there this morning.

Settling herself once more into his side, she turns the long slender box over in her hands a few times before finally meeting his eyes again and passing it to him. "Here you go, Captain Valentine."

A slow smile creeps across his face, making dimples peek out under his scruff. He holds the box up, looking at her with an amused expression as he recognizes it as a recycled box from his Christmas gift to her. "A bracelet? Really, Swan?"

"Well, you know, I figure you have the rings, the earrings and the necklace going on, we might as well complete your line of accessories."

He leans down to plant a kiss on the end of her nose, but tugs the red ribbon off the box nevertheless. "Let's see if you have my style down right," he says, lifting the lid of the box.

She bites her lip, watching his expression carefully, breath held, suddenly more awake than she has been in days, every nerve racing. No doubt he could feel the rapid pounding of her heart through her ribs and against his.

His now confused expression, the slight frown curving his lips, she watches, waiting, worrying, as that frown is suddenly lifted, along with his brows and she feels him suck in a breath as he meets her gaze. "Emma, is this —"

The question hangs there between them for a few quick heartbeats as she slowly nods, daring to hope.

Box and lid slide from his fingers as her pulls her up tighter into his embrace, warm lips finding hers in a sudden rush, trying to speak and kiss her all at once. She can't help the relieved laugh that she puffs out into his mouth, her own emotions a matching tumble of his.

"Pregnant? Really?"

She slants her lips across his in a lingering caress. "Well, I didn't go find some random pregnant woman to pee on that stick for me."

He nips at her lower lip with that before caressing the spot with his tongue — she can taste his shared joy and excitement in a way she never imagined, never dared hope.

"How long have you known?" he questions, still reluctant to leave her mouth.

"Just long enough to avoid getting you a proper Valentine's Day gift."

His lips catch hers in another kiss, voice thick with emotion. "This, love, is more than any proper Valentine's gift."

She chuckles, but pulls back to give him stern look glance. "Maybe. But just don't go expecting one every year."


	2. Standing Still

**_Standing Still_**

He'd missed this. The feeling of being constantly in motion even when he was standing still. The rise and fall of a ship deck beneath his feet, heights that left him feeling lighter than air one minute, the next a quick scramble to keep his balance as everything shifted. To have that constant sense of motion, of flight, of freedom and endless possibilities under an open sky and the horizon far off.

_This_.

Here, in this darkened stairwell outside her door, her hand pressing once again over his heart, the other curling into his collar as their noses brushed and heartbeats kept a rapid staccato and they hung in the sliver of shared air between them. Standing still and yet the whole world in motion with him, everything else falling away, leaving his heart lighter than air.

As her lips brushed over his, setting into motion once again that sparking trail of fire, and she was his endless sky of stars, a map to unknown destinations he looked forward to charting every day.


	3. Stay

"Hook?"

She tries to ignore how lost her voice sounds in the cold air of the docks, drowned among the rhythmic slap of waves on hulls, the creak of wooden planks shifting, the harsh metallic clang of rigging shifting in the wind. She listens again, hoping for some sound of movement, of him from inside the ship as she hesitates by the railing, scared to even reach out and touch it. This was his, his home, his everything, and she was too alone right now, too frightened to barge in without an invitation.

She takes another breath, trying to find some small scrap of strength to put behind her voice as she calls out.

"Killian?"

Of course her voice breaks, and she steps back a little, already knowing there isn't going to be an answer. She looks beyond the mast of the Jolly to where the moon is tracing a silvery line against the horizon. It is teasing her, that emptiness tugging at her, at the nothingness she wants right now.

All she wants right now is to run, to find someway to that spot in the middle of nowhere that is safe enough for her as her soul shatters into a million pieces again. Someplace away, someplace she can try and maybe put the pieces back together again, to find once more those walls she was stupid enough to let down. Someplace where she can dash aside all senseless notions like hope and belief and thinking she could ever truly have a home she could trust.

The bench is cold, seeping through the denim of her jeans, mixing with the chill already taking over her bones, but she can't even shiver. She's too focused on trying to find a way out, trying to ignore the gnawing tug that tells her to be still to find a place to stay. She shakes her head at her thoughts, letting out a breath that pushes down the sting of tears again. It is if her life has been on repeat, an endless loop of thinking she had found a home, only to be betrayed once again. Only this time it was by those she had always tried to hold on to some glimmer of hope for as she bounced from foster home to foster home. Part of her always wanted to believe there had been a reason, some noble gesture behind her being cast aside. And until a few hours ago, she had convinced herself there had been.

But now it was all too clear. It had never been about her having a chance for have a better life. No, she was shoved aside, shoved away because she was a key, something to come back and break a curse and give them all their happy endings back. But what about hers? What about her happy beginning or in between? She was just some necessary ingredient, a means to an end. Those twenty-eight years never existed for them. They only had the worry for a few minutes before everything was zapped into no memories at all. No one ever thought about her in all that time, ever worried, ever wondered how she was doing. She truly had always been all alone and abandoned. How could she possibly think they could ever understand, that they could ever regret? Why should they regret? Just as they needed, she showed up on schedule and poof, everything was back to being how it was, the worries over a daughter sent away on her own existing for a few mere heartbeats.

And yet for her, it had been nothing but an endless heartache. And everything since arriving here, all of it was crumbling away in the face of doubts over who and what she really was. Even the crazy jumble of memories of a life — a _good _life — with Henry were fading despite her nightly attempts to hold on to them. They only thing that ever seemed to be real for her was the hollow sense of being alone.

"Swan?"

His voice startles her to her feet, her reason for running here to the docks coming back to her. But as she looks at him and the wary expression on his face at finding her here, all those doubts and insecurities begin to weave their way in, the first foundations to those walls she had let down.

"Emma, love, whats wrong?"

The caress of his voice isn't what she expects, nor is his hand reaching out for hers, ring-heavy fingers soothing over her chilled ones. She watches him, trying to find some truth in his face, something beyond the concern in his eyes. It takes her a couple panicked heartbeats to realize there is no guile, no seeing her for anything other than what she has always been in his eyes.

One step, and she is pressed against him, burying her face against his neck, arms wrapping around him, body trembling as she gives in to this one place of shelter. She barely registers his breath hitch in surprise before his arms pull her closer, a gentle rocking not unlike the rise and fall of a ships deck beneath her feet chasing the cold out of her soul.

"Aye, love, it's all right."

His murmured words are warm against her temple as his hand comes up to cradle her head. She has to force another shaking breath from her lungs to fight back the tears threatening to rise once more. Her hand tugs at the edge of his jacket, curling into a fist, as her other grips harder at the material across his back. Her palm burns, itches again, remembering on its own how his heart had felt cradled there. She had held a piece of him, his very soul there. Now all she wishes she could do is push herself inside his skin, to vanish, find someplace closer, even warmer than as tight as he was holding her right now.

Maybe this was her one safe spot, that her instinct to run had lead her here for a reason. Heat begins to rise up in her again, melting away her rush of rage, leaving nothing but a fragile exhaustion in its place. She doesn't know how long it is before his voice is warm against her again.

"If you need a place to stay —"

She nods against him before lifting her head to meet his gaze. "For now at least," she manages in a slightly steady voice.

"For as long as you ever need, love." His thumb brushes across her cheeks, wiping away a dampness she didn't realize was there.

Still tight against his side, she lets her head fall against his shoulder, glancing up at the star-filled sky suddenly warm in a winter wind as she lets him lead her aboard the Jolly once more.


End file.
